Is there a relationship between age and weight loss on patients undergoing laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy?

With the increasing rate on obesity, different surgical procedures started to perform in these patients. Nowadays, bariatric surgery is considered as a reliable and effective method in the treatment of morbid obesity. In this present study, we aimed to investigate whether that was a relationship between the weight loss and age on patients who underwent laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) for morbid obesity.

Materials and Methods

In our clinic, patients who underwent LSG and who has the data on the sixth month of follow-up were included in the study. Patients’ age, preoperative body weight, height and the rate of weight loss at the sixth months were recorded. Patients were evaluated by dividing patients into two groups of over and below 30 years old. All data was installed to SPSS 18.0 (Chicago, USA) program. The t-test was used for comparisons between groups. A value of p<0.05 was accepted as statistical significance.

Results

69 patients who came to control at the sixth months after surgery were included to study. 52 of the patients (75%) were female and 17 (25%) were male. 50 patients were over 30 years old and 19 patients were below 30 years old. The patients of two groups have similar preoperative body weight and BMI. The weight loss at the sixth month was 7-57 kg (mean: 32.16 ± 11.7) in patients over 30 years old and 25 to 60 kg (mean : 39.63 ± 10.0) in patients below 30 years old, respectively. The difference was statistically significant according to amount of weight loss at the sixth month (p:0,019). The decrease on BMI at the sixth month was 2.4 to 17.8 kg/m² (mean: 11.46 ± 3.8) in patients over 30 years old and 7.0 to 19.6 kg/m² (mean: 13.61 ± 3.9) in patients below 30 years old, respectively. The difference was statistically significant (p:0,043).

Discussion

In our study, we investigated the difference between preoperative age and weight loss at the postoperative sixth month. According to the results of the statistical analysis, statistically significant more weight loss was seen in patients below 30 years old and a significant reduction on BMI was seen.